WEST BANK (Dispatches) – The OIC Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) has strongly condemned the retaliatory punitive reaction of the Zionist regime to contain the backlash over the prison break in a high-security facility north of the occupied territory.
In a statement, IPHRC said that Zionist prison officials are subjecting Palestinian prisoners to retaliatory solitary confinement, collective harassment, violence, and torture under the pretext of security overhaul.
“Also, the security forces have launched a door-to-door search operation targeting innocent Palestinian civilians, particularly close family members of the prisoners at large. These reprisal measures are grossly disproportional and lack any legal basis, hence, violate international human rights and humanitarian laws,” the group said in its statement.
IPHRC noted that the recent incident has again brought to attention the festering issue of gross human rights violations committed by Zionist regime authorities against Palestinian prisoners.
“Israel has incarcerated thousands of innocent Palestinians, including women and children, on flimsy charges of ‘security offenses’, subjecting them to extended arbitrary administrative detentions for multiple years without any recourse to justice outrightly denying the right to free trial,” IPHRC said.
Meanwhile, Hamas had conditioned any future prisoner exchange with the Zionist regime on the release of the prisoners who recently managed a daring escape from an regime jail, but were recaptured by the regime.
Abu Ubaida, spokesman for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the resistance movement which is based in the Israeli-blockaded Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip, made the remarks in a televised address.
Six prisoners, five of whom belong to the Islamic Jihad, Hamas’ fellow Gaza-based resistance group, escaped the Gilbao Prison in the northern part of the occupied territories through an underground tunnel earlier this month. The facility has earned notoriety as the Zionist regime’s version of the Guantanamo prison.
The Palestinian official said that Qassam’s commandership still viewed the arrestees “with pride” and considered them to be “heroes,” saying they had already “relayed their message to the world” by once breaking out of the prison.
“They were the ones who made the Muslim Ummah and the Palestinian people proud through their brave and strong operation,” he said.